Serial's Adnan Syed Gets New Trial

Trending News: Serial Podcast Subject Adnan Syed Granted Retrial

Why Is This Important?

Long Story Short

The subject of the hugely popular Serial podcast, Adnan Syed, who was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 2000 has been granted a new trial.

Long Story

For 17 years, Adnan Syed has been locked up after being convicted of murder — and for every one of those 17 years, he's plead his innocence. But in 2014, instead of being just another inmate claiming to be wrongly accused, Syed's family friend Rabia Chaudry was able to convince a producer at the public radio show This American Life to take a deeper look at the case. The rest is pop culture history.

The true crime podcast Serial, which told Syed's story one episode at a time over 12 episodes, went on to be downloaded over 100 million times, and spawned a podcast industry that has been thriving ever since.

However, at the end of Serial — spoiler alert — host and co-creator of the how Sarah Koenig couldn't come to a conclusion. After combing over the court documents, the phone records and hopping in the car to see if she could carry out the timeline Syed's accusers claimed themselves, Koenig couldn't decide whether he did it or not.

There was significant evidence to call for a retrial, though. The primary reason being that Syed's lawyer showed gross negligence in the trial, particularly when she failed to bring forth key alibi witness Asia McClain, whose testimony backed up Syed.

On Thursday, after months of deliberation the court decided to hear a retrial, to the absolute joy from Chaudry and Syed's family.

"This is an incredible victory, I am trying to act calm now," said Syed's attorney Justin Brown to People. "We have been fighting for this day for, I think, about eight years now, and it's been a grueling fight and there has been a lot of disappointments along the way and there were times when it looked like we lost. "And we've made it and we got him a new trial."

But this doesn't mean Syed can just walk free. Like with O.J. Simpson (watch American Crime Story v. People v. O.J. Simpson if you haven't, it's awesome), there's the obvious problem of: 'if he didn't do it, who did?'

Koenig sure couldn't find anyone, and it's been so many years now they probably never will. Still, if McClain's alibi testimony is considered and Syed can have some spot on lawyering, who knows, maybe they'll let him walk.

Koenig did do a few mini-episodes to cover the appeal for the retrial, so it's a safe bet to count on her coming out with more episodes to follow. Hopefully.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

How crazy would it be if they found he was falsely accused?

Disrupt Your Feed

If this trial wasn't covered in such a popular podcast, would the judge have given it a second look?

Drop This Fact

Serial won a Peabody Award due to how good of a job it did at finding flaws in the criminal justice system.